Effective Small Business Websites – What’s Really Required?

There are some questions related to creating a web presence that can't be answered definitively. The most important one is probably this: What's really required to create an effective small business website?

What do you need your website to do?

A good place to start is to start with a 'blank slate.' Then ask, what do I need my website to do? Depending on its purpose, you may have a variety of items that occur to you, like, "explain what my product is," or, "show people some of the glowing reviews my services have earned."

All of these will be useful in fleshing out the structure and content of your site, but there's a better way to begin.

Ask this question: What does my website need to do?

Sounds like it's the same question, doesn't it? But there is a big difference. This question asks only for the very essence of what your small business website must do to be effective. There are really only two things an effective small business website needs to do:

It needs to draw visitors in the first place.Simple enough. If your site doesn't get any traffic, you can't conduct business. Like the classic philosophical question, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?" The answer is actually quite simple: "Maybe, but if no one is around to hear it, what difference does it make?"So, the number one thing an effective small business website needs to do is get people to visit it.

It needs to convince anonymous visitors into self-identified prospective customers. Once you've gotten folks to visit, you need to know who they are so you can turn them into paying customers (unless you can turn them into customers immediately!)Makes sense, doesn't it? The primary function of your small business website after getting someone to visit is to be able to pitch your product or services to them until you earn their trust as a customer.

Effective Small Business Websites - What's Really Required?

Of course, it's relatively easy to define these two factors, but making them work on your small business website will be just a bit more difficult! We'll look into some of those issues next time.